OTTUMWA — Every little thing needed to go Ottumwa's manner on Friday night time to knock off Waukee Northwest.
Even the issues the Bulldogs couldn't management.
Like, for instance, a referee unintentionally blowing their whistle.
Ottumwa's hope of constructing a gap assertion by scoring on their opening drive was halted by means of no fault of the Bulldog offense. In actual fact, Spencer Dalbey appeared to have moved the chains and moved Ottumwa to midfield on the primary possession of the sport spinning by means of a pair of gamers for the Wolves earlier than diving forward for what gave the impression to be a powerful 14-yard run when 12 yards have been wanted on third down.
Dalbey and the Bulldogs have been able to go together with a contemporary set of downs. The referees, nonetheless, weren’t.
As Dalbey was within the means of splitting defenders, on of the three officers thought the Ottumwa quarterback had gone down. The end result was a protracted convention that led to the ruling of an inadvertent whistle, wiping out the whole results of the earlier play forcing the Bulldogs to should make one other unimaginable play once more.
"It's irritating. It's an enormous momentum killer," Dalbey stated. "The factor we struggled to do was to get again and get again momentum with out letting these issues hassle us."
Marquez Briggs was stopped properly in need of the primary down on the replay of the third-down play, forcing Ottumwa to punt the ball away. Waukee Northwest by no means seemed again, driving 64 yards in seven performs for the primary of 5 touchdowns within the first half on the way in which to a 49-0 win over the Bulldogs enhancing to 4-2 on the season whereas dropping Ottumwa to 2-4 with three straight losses by a mixed 92 factors to 3 groups (Des Moines Lincoln, Southeast Polk and Waukee Northwest) with a mixed document of 13-5.
"It was a confidence factor. We got here out and simply weren’t on prime of it," Dalbey stated. "We have to get again to that."
Ottumwa will look to get again on the successful monitor at Norwalk subsequent Friday. Whereas not straightforward, the Bulldogs face three ultimate opponents (Norwalk, Des Moines Roosevelt and Iowa Metropolis Excessive) which have a mixed document of 8-10 with the final two video games being performed at Schafer Stadium.
"We simply should put in 100% effort each play, each quarter and each half of each recreation," Dalbey stated. "Each single time you step on the sphere is massive. I really feel like we're a bunch of fellows that, if we put in a 100-percent effort, we will go and compete with a whole lot of groups."